The Map of Sport Skills

One of the most common sense categorizations of sport skills that I have run across is from Successful Coaching, 3rd Edition by Rainer Martens. By the way, I highly recommend this book as a complete reference to the basics of coaching. On page 182-3, The "Celestial Map of Sport Skill" shows six areas that an athlete has to develop to be a complete player. I'll paraphrase them here:

Technical Skills - similar to the "Motor Skill Competence" that I list in the Sports Cognition Framework (SCF), these are the generic sport skills that cross several different sports:

- Hitting
- Fielding
- Shooting
- Passing
- Kicking
- Guarding
- Throwing
- Running
- Jumping

Tactical Skills - like "decision-making ability" referenced in the SCF, these are the "in-game" abilities to choose the right thing to do in different scenarios

- Rules of the game
- Reading the situation
- Situation tactics
- Self awareness of skills
- Game plan and strategy
- Decision-making skills

Mental Skills - "Positive Mental State" in the SCF, these skills make up the emotional and motivational state of the athlete. Often included in the field of Sport Psychology

- Motivation
- Emotional control
- Concentration
- Confidence

Physical Skills - this set of skills is the raw athletic skills that are needed to perform the technical skills

- Speed
- Power
- Flexibility
- Quickness
- Balance
- Agility
- Strength
- Acceleration

Character - to build a complete athlete and person, these skills are necessary

- Respect
- Fairness
- Honesty
- Responsibility
- Leadership

As I have mentioned previously, my focus in this blog will be on the first three skill sets, leaving Physical Skills to the many practitioners and exercise facilities for athletes and Character to other life-learning environments.